Dr. Roger likens the core principles of accuracy and integrity to the underpinnings of our society…as universally understood as “motherhood and apple pie.”

She enjoins readers to reflect on these critical components of medical research. She reminds us that as technology advances, patient registries grow, electronic medical records become universal, and the vast amount of data in health care becomes more easily accessed, it becomes ever more important to be vigilant. She highlights not only data quality, but privacy, security, intellectual property and more.

The researchers showed that using a mobile van to bring the screening to neighborhood locations (for example, a mall parking lot) is equally effective to hospital-based screening, and may increase screening rates due to convenience and a less formal setting.

Incidence of this deadly cancer has been rising rapidly, and exceeds that of melanoma, lung, colon and breast cancers. Early diagnosis and treatment dramatically increases life expectancy, yet screening and early diagnosis rates remain low.

This approach offers a new opportunity to reduce death and disability from esophageal cancer.

This study was published in the American Journal of Gastroenterology. The research is part of ongoing efforts in the center to identify ways to improve population health and lower costs of care.

Doctors used to give their female patients hormone replacement therapy (HRT) after menopause believing that it had positive health benefits.

However, data from a large clinical trial cast profound doubt on these benefits. So much so that clinicians were encouraged to only give it to patients for symptoms related to menopause (hot flashes). Many women stopped their HRT.

Meanwhile, other women kept taking it, and the question remained. Does it put their life at risk?

In this study of 5,731 patients with diabetes, patients were evaluated to see how well their disease control was on three measures selected by Minnesota Community Measurement (MCM): cholesterol, blood pressure and and a blood sugar test.